Regrets
by Mogo Girl
Summary: My view of what Penelope's feelings must have been following the events of the episode Risky Business. Also how I wish the episode had ended. Slight M/G, but only friendship WARNING: Spoilers for the episode Risky Business inside! Please Read and Review!


_Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or any of the characters._

_After watching this episode, I was so disappointed that no one had attempted to comfort Penelope after the experience she went through, it just didn't seem right. So this is just a oneshot about what I think she was feeling and one way I wish the episode had really ended. Warning; SPOILERS for the Risky Business ahead. _

REGRETS – an epilogue to Risky Business.

Penelope Garcia sat looking out the window of the BAU's Gulfstream as it jetted back towards Quantico, Virginia. The events of the previous few days had worn hard on her and she was exhausted and wound up all at the same time. Penelope usually didn't go with the team on a case, but this one had involved teenagers joining an online 'game' in which they choked themselves. As the team's computer guru, Penelope had been asked to go through the victims' laptops to trace the game back to its originator, the unsub. Usually, she would have enjoyed the change of scenery and the chance to travel with the team but this time she was wishing she could have found some excuse that would have kept her from ever boarding that plane in the first place.

All had been going fine until Hotch had asked her to do the one thing she hated more than anything…Profile. Technically he had just asked her to talk to a suspect, a teenage boy named Christopher, but really it was profiling he needed her to do. Penelope's role with the BAU team was Technical Analyst, she gathered information and passed it onto the agents to use as they saw fit. Profiling was something she was never the least bit interested in and the few times she had been asked to try it, it always led to a bad experience. Penelope was an eternal optimist and to dig through people's lives to find the bad and horrific was something that "made her brain all wonky and seriously impaired her ability to giggle" as she had once told Hotch. And this time had been no different.

Even though he was the team's prime suspect at the time, Penelope had felt an instant connection with Christopher. Penelope had seen a haunting loneliness and deep sadness in his eyes that touched her heart. After his mother's death, Christopher had taken on a Goth persona and was a loner either by choice or necessity. After the death of her own parents when she was a teenager, Penelope had also gravitated toward a similar lifestyle. Of course, these were the exact reasons that Hotch had asked her to talk to Christopher when Morgan and Reid had failed to make any connection with him during their interview.

Two sentences into her 'interview' with him, Penelope had known that she had made a connection with Christopher. For her, it was never an interview as much as it was a conversation with a sad, lonely boy who just needed someone to talk to. Ironically, it was exactly because of her approach to Christopher that made her a natural born profiler. Even both Hotch and Rossi had been impressed at how good she was with the suspect commenting to each other that they should make use of her profiling skills more often, a statement that would have horrified Penelope had she heard it.

Knowing that she was supposed to be getting information out of Christopher about the choking game website, Penelope had made some comments to him about the security that had been set up on the site. As she spoke to him, she quickly realized that he really didn't have much of a clue as to what she was talking about and in the back of her mind she began to suspect that Christopher couldn't be the unsub they were looking for. The thought genuinely made her happy and she eased even more into her role of listener and confidant for the troubled teen. Before the conversation could progress, however, the boy's father had barged in and invoked his right to legal council for his son, effectively ending any further conversation Penelope could hope to have with him. Penelope had done the best she could but she still felt she had let both Christopher and the team down.

What had hurt even more than that though was the fact that when Christopher's father had entered the room, he immediately ordered the teen to stop talking to Penelope because she was not his friend and that she had just been lying to him in order to get information out of him. Penelope was nothing if not honest and extremely compassionate and the look in Christopher's eyes when he thought she might have been lying to him broke her heart into a million pieces.

In the end, she realized that a connection had been made as Christopher had secretly slipped her his most prized possession as he left the interrogation room, his earring. The gesture had both touched her heart and made her extremely sad at the same time. The thought that a teenage boy whom she had only met a few minutes earlier would choose her as the one person he trusted was a telling indication of the relationships in his life.

Soon after her talk with Christopher, the team would figure out that it had actually been his father running the website and that he had been also been hurting his own son and killed his wife, acting out Munchausen's by Proxy syndrome. Penelope was literally sickened at the realization of what Christopher's life must have been like with his father. The team was able to catch the man but Penelope knew that Christopher's suffering was far from being over as he would have to try to learn to deal with the horrors he had been subjected to throughout his life.

Now on the plane ride back home, the team each seemed lost in his or her own world and was dealing with the effects of their job in their own way. JJ and Hotch were in the galley talking and having a drink, Rossi was reading, Reid and Emily were having some frivolous argument about a star puzzle Emily was working and Derek was listening to his music on his headphones. Penelope felt a little lost not sure how to deal with the left over emotions of her profiling experience. So she sat and watched the world pass by underneath the wings of the jet as she attempted to process her jumbled feelings.

"Hey, Baby Girl."

Penelope looked up in surprise as she noticed Derek had slipped into the seat across from her. She and Derek had been best friends for a long time but things between them had been strained lately due to nothing more than life just getting in the way. The last few weeks things seemed to have been getting better though and she actually drew a sigh of relief as she looked over at her "Noir Hero" as she had once labeled him knowing he had sensed her troubled spirit.

"Hey, Hot Stuff," she replied with a weak smile.

"Penelope, are you okay?" Derek asked with genuine concern in his voice. "I didn't have a chance to talk to you after your interview with Christopher and I know it really bothered you."

"Well since you asked…" Suddenly all of the emotions Penelope had been feeling burst inside of her and she began to cry. Immediately moving into the seat next to her, Derek put his arm around her and pulled her into his chest.

"It's okay, Baby Girl, let it out." he soothed as he held her close.

"Oh, Derek, I just feel so bad for him and I keep remembering the look in his eyes when he thought I had lied to him," Penelope said after a few minutes as her sobbing diminished.

"I know, Sweetheart, but in the end, he knew you hadn't and I've got to tell you, I've never seen any profiler make any more of a connection with anyone than you did with that boy. What you did was amazing, Penelope, and I'm very proud of you," Derek said as he looked into her eyes and brushed the tears from her face. "Even Hotch and Rossi were impressed with the way you handled yourself."

"Really?"

"Yes, really, Garcia. Don't look so surprised," he said with a chuckle. "You are such an important part of this team and we would have never caught Christopher's father without all that you did on this case."

"Thanks, My Love, you always know just how to make me feel better."

"Well, it's the truth and don't you forget it! Now, you look exhausted, why don't you shut those gorgeous eyes of yours and get some sleep. I'll be right here if you want to talk some more later," he said as he gently pulled her head back down onto his shoulder.

Penelope actually smiled as she allowed herself to settle into her best friend's warm and safe embrace. She knew there would always be regrets for the way things had turned out with Christopher but at the same time she was aware of the support of her BAU family and what it meant to be a part of the team.

_The End. _


End file.
